Xero cloud accounting is a cloud-based accounting system, perfect for small and growing businesses that are looking for smart accounting features to revolutionise the way they do business.
You can use cloud-based software by logging into an account online as the data kept on it is stored on online servers. That means you can view your data anytime, anywhere, and on any device with an internet connection.
But you’ve probably heard all that before. So, let’s dive a little deeper into Xero cloud accounting and what it can do for your business.
Invoices
Are you still creating your invoices in Word Documents? Do you struggle to keep track of which invoices you’ve sent to who and when you need to send a reminder?
Xero has enhanced the invoicing process by making it fast and straightforward. Specifically, you can use it to:
- Set up repeating invoices: you can easily create, save and automatically send recurring invoices.
- Bulk send invoices: this feature allows you to send all of your invoices at once, saving you precious time.
- Invoices on your mobile device: you can even create and save invoices with the Xero mobile app!
- Pay invoices sent to you immediately: all you have to do is integrate Xero with a payment application like GoCardless or Stripe.
Capture data
This feature is among the most useful offered by Xero, as you can use a data capture tool like Hubdoc to take a picture of a physical document (like a receipt or invoice), capture the data and upload it to Xero.
The app does this through optical character recognition (OCR) technology, which automates data extraction. The suppliers’ name, amounts, invoice numbers and due dates are extracted to create draft transactions in Xero.
Using Hubdoc and Xero to record your expenses is quicker than transcribing it to a spreadsheet and significantly reduces the chance of error.
Bills to Pay
The Bills to Pay feature helps you complete paperless bookkeeping by keeping bills in the cloud that you can access anytime.
Again, OCR technology extracts all the information from a photo you take of a paper bill or a supplier sends you via email to upload a digital version to the cloud. From there, you can use Xero’s Bill to Pay to:
- Maintain an overview of bills: see all you need to see in one place and get alerts of due bills.
- Schedule payments: stay in control and pay multiple bills simultaneously.
- Repeat and replicate bills: this feature saves you time by replicating previous bills, making edits to the amounts accordingly.
- Pay with TransferWise: this helps you manage and pay multiple bills via Xero using your preferred bank account.
Direct bank feeds and reconciliation
For any business, it’s essential to monitor and analyse cashflow. However, manually updating accounts can be a frustrating and time-consuming task.
To help, Xero can connect to your bank accounts and feed in data daily. This means you can set up automatic bank reconciliations accurately and effortlessly — you can even do it from your phone!
Analytics
This feature is an optional add-on but it’s absolutely worth the extra few pounds per month to get a hold of.
With Xero Analytics, users can track cashflow by importing their invoicing and bills data into the app. From there, the feature will project your bank balance and cashflow so you can prioritise certain invoices.
Xero Analytics can also provide you with a visual business snapshot so you can understand how your business is performing in the long-term. You can use it to quickly check income and expense trends, operating costs and profitability, accounts and cash balance — all reports are automatically generated.
Xero also offers Analytics Plus, which helps users make cashflow decisions using AI-powered predictions. It also comes with basic scenario planning and even deeper insights.
As Xero Gold Partners, we love Xero. We can help you get set up to transform your accounting system. Get in touch with us to discuss Xero cloud accounting solutions in more detail.
